Nothing clears my head and dirties my fingernails like pulling weeds in the garden. Since I’ve been gardening for decades, I know my weeds by sight if not by name, and I don’t need to do much thinking about what goes and what stays.

We’ve had an unusually wet spring and summer so far. Rains have been frequent, steady, and refreshing. I’ve never had such luxuriously thriving watermelon plants, and my hydrangeas are lush and lovely. God’s been doing a great job watering!

But, since the rain falls on the just and the unjust, weeds are also thriving. Everywhere.

I’ve been looking at a lot of weeds.

Yesterday I weeded a path near the back of the garden where the ground is not loose and loamy. I had to use some oomph to extract the encroaching invaders and their tight roots.

Some of the same type weeds were growing in the raised bed nearby; nestled in a thick mulch of grass clippings, roots released much more easily.

On the heavily used path near the front of the garden, the same annoying crabgrass seemed imbedded, and I had to use my hand hoe to pry it loose. And I still couldn’t get all the roots.

What was the difference?

​I had the same situation with the succulent stemmed purslane. A huge specimen, nicely mulched along with the butternut squash, pulled out with very little effort. Removing one half the size on the path,? That was a different story.

A different story, a different garden, a different set of sin weeds.

No two of us the same. Why do we have so much trouble remembering that?

It’s tempting to look at another person’s life garden and draw conclusions about their weeds:

Why doesn’t she just quit?

Why won’t he just stop doing whatever it is that is wreaking havoc in his life?

And this is where it gets interesting, because I’m sure you already have someone in mind, or something, the sin that is in your opinion the big one, the bad one, the obvious one.

I don’t need to name one, just pick the one that popped into your mind when I said, “Why doesn’t she just quit?”

I propose we stop looking around at the ways we perceive other people are sinning, stop judging them for not “pulling it out by the roots.” Maybe they can’t. You don’t know.

In your gently mulched life garden, an egregious sin like fill-in-the-blank might never be found, and the “lesser” sins can be removed with minimal effort, minimal damage.

Did you ever pause to wonder - Who mulched your life? Who loosened the soil and planted good seeds?​Who taught you how to take care of those weeds before they take care of you? ​

That fellow over there, he’s been walked on for decades; his weeds are trampled into his soul, and he can’t imagine life without them.Growing good plants? He hardly has energy to think of that.

He’ll need quite a bit of mulching, plenty of kind words and loving presence, to soften the soil of his heart. His garden doesn’t look like yours, but he’s following Jesus too. Who are you to judge the effort he has made to root out the ugly bits? Perhaps he has invested more prayer oomph and agony over his tenacious weeds than you have ever needed to exert because you grew up with tended soil in your soul.

Give thanks for what you have been given, but then by all means – give grace.

Yep, same space as above,

Help with the mulching,the quiet application of kindness,of judgment-free presence,of patient waiting for the Spirit to work behind the scene, all unseen, beneath the soil like a persistent earthworm.

And one day you will rejoice over that clean space which was once infested with carpet weed, that carefully tended patch of beautiful flowers or table ready vegetables.

Your prayer agony will be rewarded with the joy of seeing this one thriving- “...Their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more.” Jeremiah 31:12b

The time will come when her weeds will be fewer, his hard soil softened, his good plants flourishing, her life a place of reclaimed beauty. And you’ll have a front row seat to the wonder. ​And just about the same time, perhaps you’ll discover that the bull thistle of judgment which pierced everyone who brushed against you is gone from YOUR garden.

The joy will flow around the circuit of community which has grown between you and your fellow gardeners, and the light you release will be a beacon of hope in a very weedy world.​

I planted onions two weeks ago; the shriveled bulbs were shedding their dry paper-thin husks and sprouting palest yellow tendrils of hope. They looked pathetic.

The weather was so strange this spring, people ran out of ways to talk about it, but that didn’t stop the words, words, words about winter hanging on, spring being lost, the download for spring being unavailable at this time, mother Nature has fallen asleep, etc. My favorite creative grumble which I borrowed and used a few times was- “Is it just me, or does it feel like it’s January the 96th?"

​By the time I planted onions it was January the 114th. It’s been a long winter. We saw snow here in central PA three times...in APRIL. (Wait, four.) We had the saplin’ bender and the onion snow. Twice. I gave up on not grumbling and resorted to apologizing and then grumbling.

Those onion sets were doing the best they could. The mom and pop store I can see from my house had prepared for all the local gardeners to plant onions at the usual time, say – late February, or early March. Gallon jars of seeds waited beside the scales. Enormous bags of onion sets were arranged in the enclosed porch, waiting. Waiting. Waiting. And for all the above reasons, we gardeners were waiting too. It’s hard to think “planting” when you’re using the shovel to move snow.​

Days passed. The sun warmed the onions, waiting there on the porch, and when I finally worked up my courage to say, “today I’m planting onions,” almost every onion set that I pulled from the bag had a sprout longer than the bulb. The shoots were leggy and pale, and the sets had begun to shrivel and soften. The prospects for onion harvest seemed slim. But, I love my little store, so I decided to give those miserable bulbs a chance. I hurried home to start planting.

I got busy preparing the soil. I hoed and raked and swept maple seeds, and for a little bit, I didn’t think about a sweatshirt. But something changed in the air midafternoon, and I retreated to the house to warm up. Brrr. Only with much urging could I convince myself to pull on my warmest sweatshirt and head back out the door. Those onion sets were still waiting. I knew it was going to rain, so... ​​

I created a straight and orderly trench, not too deep, not too shallow. One by one by one, I “stuck” the onions, roots down. More than once I pondered as I stuck them in the freshly worked soil - will they make it?

I finished one short row, and it wasn’t raining. And, I had a lot of onion sets.

I kept planting until the bag was empty. I tried to tidy the bed a bit and patted the soil around my project. The whole business looked rather pitiful, and I was still chilly, but something inside of me had warmed a bit.

Those five short rows of wretched bulbs, I was rooting for them to root.

Days passed. Today, it's January 142nd, but no one talks like that anymore. The orchard trees are blooming lavishly, lambs are scampering on the hillsides, and all my favorite migratory birds are back.

Today, "out the door" looked like work: planting work, weed work, pull-out-6793-maple-seedlings work. I was humming hard, hashing over a conversation I'd read on Facebook concerning a topic I'd promised myself I'd never brooch in that format. Yet here I was, mulling over a fitting retort, clenching my jaw; I might even have been muttering to myself. I was "out the door," but I was far from the peace of pause. Mindfulness was in the bottom of the bucket, covered with dirt.

But eventually I heard myself, grinding over that same old tune, and I realized I wasn't listening to anything, wasn't smelling the sweetness of grape hyacinth floating over the garden, wasn't hearing the fuss and twitter (REAL twitter!) of graceful tree swallows overhead, wasn't feeling the damp soil in my hands.

I was having trouble taking my own advice - "wherever you are, be all there." I tried talking to myself (really,) but before I'd emptied my bucket, I was back formulating a response that I realized I would never send. I wasn't sure I could get to "quiet." from here. Finally, I took off my gloves and headed for the house to find my camera. That viewfinder is a tool that helps me adjust my perspective. Here's what I found.

Grape hyacinths - deeply blue, deeply fragrant.

Radish sprouts, tiny but present. Those seeds were planted three days ago!

Dogwood- this morning, the freshly opened blooms were a soft buttery yellow! Now, look at them!

Virginia Bluebells- the pink buds open to become delicate blue blooms. Every year I think - how extravagant!

Red veined Sorrel - It's a perennial? I didn't know that when I planted it last year. Time to look for some recipes!

Gettingout the doordoesn't have to involve an event, and being mindful can happen right in the middle of your mundane chores. But you're going to have to figure out how to "be there," all there, even if it's just for a few minutes. What helps you to hit the pause button, even when you're doing chores, pulling weeds, mowing grass? How do you move from business and distraction to mindfulness and pause? How do you stay present?

The sun is a vague smudge of light behind the white whiteness of heavy fog. It’s trying to heat the cool mist of morning into hazy humidity that will make my world a droopy, wilted mess by high noon, with the air close and sweltering until the deep dark of night.

​But for now, my sweatshirt still feels good, a barrier against the dampness that clings and chills. The words aren’t etymologically related, but I think the mist adds mystery to the world as it mutes noises to a muffled whisper.

But not all noises. Farmer Neighbor’s rooster is -abruptly- awake.

And loud.

Maybe I’ll count his proclamations this morning, just for a while, to give credit where credit is due. This barnyard fowl has a knack for exuberantly greeting the day. But, no. I stop counting at nine in about as many minutes because the counting is even more distracting than the crowing. ​

Two carriages appear along the road, barely visible, emerging from unseen realms, and I wonder if the drivers feel like cloud riders, skimming along as they are, in mist and growing glory. A blue bird whistles, concealed in a tree along the line fence, and I remember Dad and his trademark call as he scattered a few meal worms in his feeder along the wall. He loved “his” bluebirds, and now I love mine.

The farm is waking up.

The cows were milked hours ago, but now the barnyard pauses for its daily interlude of stillness while the family gathers in the big farmkitchen for a cooked breakfast, always eggs, before the older children prepare for school. I hear their voices as three miniature adults climb over the gate and hurry along the field lane in matching shirt and dresses, forest green today, carrying their noon meal in sturdy Coleman coolers, the same ones they used last year. (No superhero lunch boxes on Hickory Lane, but Little Joe might have a hero, someone he looks up to and admires for what he does, someone who is his role model for life...he calls him "Da.")

The rooster continues to crow intermittently. Boisterously. Gates rattle, and someone leads the driving horse and her colt to the pasture. I hope I never forget that colt, running through the misty pasture like the memory of a left-behind dream that I want to go back and finish. His mom is more cautious of the barely visible terrain, and she paces nervously along the fence while he makes another loop then collapses for a nap.

Real world noises occasionally float through the mist to my unwilling ears - trucks using jake-brakes, tractors powering silo-filling blowers, motorcycles roaring along the main road like highway hummingbirds, small but fierce and flashy, (and... often a little pushy.)

I’d rather hear the rustle-fluster of a flock of pure white pigeons erupting off the corn crib roof,

or the honking racket of disoriented geese wheeling over the porch, the meadow, the neighbors’ fields, and back again, as if their GPS service is hindered by the heavy clouds, ​

​or the low insistent call of the cows, ready to graze the morning away if only someone would open the gate. Soon.

The sun is persistent, rising higher, burning wild and beautiful behind the mist, the meadow tree.

​It won’t be long now.​

I am drawn to my garden. Every bloom seems to be leaning toward morning, waiting in expectation for the glory to be revealed.

This huge moonflower opened last night as dusk fell. Some moment, in the deepening shadows, it unfurled its white wings; now its face turns east. By midday, it will bend toward the earth; its bloom will collapse inward like an empty hand.

​But for this hour, as it waits for glory, it is glorious.

As are the Morning Glories, rightly named, of course, because they too flourish, bright and radiant in the morning light. But upon closer examination, I find they seem, also, to contain glory. Each flower glows from within as if a tiny light illumines the richly colored corolla.

Apparently, they are designed in such a way as to capture the sun’s glory and fling it out for their brief and blazing lives.

​Only a day to shimmer and shine.

Or less than a day, since the cows, coming by,paused a bit too long beside the fence.

Munch.

Chew.​​Ruminate.

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me what is it you plan to doWith your one wild and precious life?Mary Oliver, from “The Summer Day”

“O, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, in the beauty of holiness, in the beauty of holiness...”

This hauntingly lovely hymn from my childhood floated into my mind as I looked over the porch railing into my June beautiful garden this morning, and for a moment I was six again, swinging my feet from a humid church pew, absorbing the harmony like I breathed in the air. Isn’t this what church singing sounds like everywhere? I didn’t know to ask that question, because this music was all I knew; this was worship and prayer, the poetry of my world.​

But today I’m wondering, couldn’t those lyrics work the other way around too? How about, O worship the Lord in the holiness of beauty?

​Those are the exact words I need when I see the early light wash across randomly scattered larkspurs and nodding pink poppies. It’s the “wow” I talked about last month, all over again.

At the end of summer last year, I tucked lilies into some new places in my garden. Of course, by spring I had rather forgotten about them, but they didn’t forget to grow.

Now, as summer ripens, I see them everywhere, faces bright and vivid in the distinctive glow of morning sun. I say to myself, “Oh, yes, the new lilies!”

I walk among the garden beds, searching, and I find dazzling splashes of color. Each lily stands, straight and lovely, face raised as if to greet the day, shining deepest orange, warmest yellow, loveliest pink.

I find this beauty, standing alone beneath the spicebush (Lindera benzoin); perhaps no one else will ever see her glory.

​Smiling through airy dill foliage, a splendid red-orange specimen greets me. I’ve never seen this one before, and probably no one else has either. Still, there she stands, straight and lovely, being the flower she was meant to be, no matter who notices.

Her beauty is not diminished if she blooms unseen behind the towering larkspurs, nor is her glow enhanced under the gaze of additional onlookers.She doesn’t fret about how many “views” she has. And she won’t “go viral,” nor does she care.

No. She blooms.

She shines in all her lily-ness, heedless of who sees.

She glows and splashes her colorright here,right now,right where the gardener planted her.

I planted, but I did not make the lilies grow. ​That miracle came from the hand of the One who said,

Consider the lilies, how they grow:they neither toil nor spin,yet I tell you,even Solomon in all his glorywas not arrayed like one of these.

Consider the lilies...​then, bloom where you're planted. ​Only you can be you.

I’m finally in my garden…after a lot of rain and a lot of waiting. I missed an early planting window of unseasonably warm days, but now at last, my nails are dirty and my back is a little tender, and my soul is awash in bird song and the aromas of spring. Lily of the valley. Warm earth. Sun warmed tea leaves. Manure. Yep, it’s all a part of the package labeled, “Springtime in the Country.”

My favorite garden activity is...wait for it... weeding. When my fingers are busy uprooting all the unwanted plants that spring up in every little patch of bare dirt, my thoughts are busy elsewhere. I need to be watchful about what fills my mind during those quieter moments. If I’m not careful, I can wear a rut in my brain, worrying about something beyond the scope of my control…which is just about everything except my own actions and responses.

But I am finding that the garden has lessons of its own to teach me, if I’m attentive. I don’t have to worry my way through an afternoon or even ten minutes. I’m learning to be mindful, and I’ve decided to pass along some of the what I’m hearing. I’ll call these posts-

.

Lessons from the Garden of Weedin'

Most of the little plants I uprooted yesterday weren’t really weeds. But, they weren’t where I wanted them.​Not true, they were where I wanted them, but they were everywhere else too.

The stepping stone walkway I’ve created (to bypass a needed but unloved guide wire, future blog post?) in my garden was neatly edged with dozens of volunteer seedlings – feverfew, hollyhock, and poppies lined up along the rocks like children pushing and shoving to see a parade. Exuding potential, the various verdant sprouts filled every possible bit of empty space.

And that was the problem. Because I like a certain amount of brown space in my garden view.​In fact, I need it, especially in the paths.

​I need to be able to find the path.

So, I set about removing those plants, by the handfuls. The first tug was a bit hard for me; after all, we’ve had sepia tone garden views for months, and now I was surrounded by the first, best greenness of spring. And they were so cute; they seemed innocent enough, waiting for a bit more sunshine and rain and few more weeks of growing season...

I knew what would come of these lovely sprouts – two foot tall plants, dozens of them, flopping over the rocks, burying the paths, making it hard for me to find my way, obscuring the path for others too. They had to go.

My mind couldn’t miss the lesson here as the stepping stones came into clearer view. I thought of younger “gardeners” I knew, of younger me.

​I wish I had learned this lesson sooner,the value of bare space in life,the joy of nothing,for myself,and for my children.

​In a recent conversation with a friend, she mentioned her struggle with figuring out “enough” for her life. When has she done enough in her job, in her family’s lives, in her housework, in her church involvement? We talked about allowing space for “nothing,” and about how hard it is to remember that this “nothing” is “something,” that it might be indispensable. ​We need those bare spaces in our lives. We need room to breathe. To rest. To be creative. To think long thoughts or no thoughts at all.

As I continued weeding, I remembered hearing an interviewer ask a woman this question: “What do you wish you had done differently?” This woman had invested deeply in her family, homeschooling the children for many years, focusing on good nutrition and encouraging creative expression; they may have been homesteaders. I don’t remember all the details. But I do remember her response: “I wish I had baked less bread.”

Is baking bread bad? Of course not, but somewhere along the way, she had discovered the truth thatall those good bits can squeeze into every bare space in the garden and obscure the path.

Uprooting handfuls of potentially amazing activities –(I won’t try to name yours, but maybe you should) – might be painful in the early stages. But I’m here to say those small bits will grow to full size and produce seeds of their own, and if you’re not careful, you might discover that your path has disappeared, that you’ve lost your way among all the growing busy-ness.

A few bucketfuls of weeds later, order was restored. Feverfew and poppies and hollyhocks are emerging in other corners of the garden, but the path will not be choked with them anytime soon.

I want to be able to find my way through the garden, and I want to keep the path clear for others who walk with me or behind me. ​

Today’s takeaway from the Garden of Weedin’ – Don’t let the good stuff obscure the path.

"flowers at your feet..." indeed, this one is a "weed" I somehow, thankfully overlooked!

The best things are nearest:Breath in your nostrils,Light in your eyes,flowers at your feet,duties at your hand,the path of Right just before you.

Do not grasp at the stars,But do life’s plain common workAs it comes,Certain that daily dutiesAnd daily bread are the sweetest things in life.

(This quote is repeatedly attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson but not verified in any precise or reliable source…So perhaps…author unknown)

Whoever said it, I find it to be true. It seems that the ability to find contentment in the common bits of daily life is the secret to living joyfully in every ordinary day. If I am always looking forward, longing for the next “big thing,” I fail to notice today’s fine little moments.

I have known people, talking all winter of the summer vacation in July…wishing for their toes in the sand...all the while completely overlooking the wonder of soft warm socks, the freshness of a leafy autumn hike, the crackle of breaking through thin ice on a winter puddle.

It is no accident, this verse that says “THIS is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24) and really, again, it’s all we have. Moments.

So, in this season, my “plain, common work” may involve a few more tomatoes. Another pan full of broccoli.

Can I just say that the novelty of the first fruit is long gone...

I’ve been known to do a happy dance the morning of the first hard frost.

​So I need this reminder, this Soul Stretch, as much as the next person. Probably more.

My mind returns to the Ghandi quote that started me on this September Soul Stretching adventure. Remember?

“When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator.I try to see Him and His mercies in all these creations.”​

So for today I set my sights…and my view finder?!... a bit lower than sunset and moon beauty, and I'm discovering beauty in my ordinary end-of-the-season vegetable garden.

If the trees of the fields offer praise, I think this lettuce in the garden might join in! (To me, it looks happy.)

Sparkling purple lettuce rain jewels were brand new at first light...and so was His mercy.

I never get tired of these sweet yellow tomatoes...but don't tell the red ones I said that.

You've heard of the Hope Diamond? This little gem is a Kale Diamond...this morning it gave me joy and expanded my soul.

With Ghandi, I will try to see God and His merciesin all these creations,thus expanding my soul​in worship of the Creator of all things great…and small!

It's that time of year again on Hickory Lane, grapes galore. Although the extremely dry summer conditions impacted fruit production, we still have lots of grapes which all need to be harvested at about the same time. Now.

It's a tedious, sticky job, and it's easy for me to get lost in the details and overlook the big picture...jars and jars of deep purple juice all winter long,

This week I was keeping an eye open for "soul stretch" moments as I sorted and stemmed the sticky little orbs for a few hours most days. And my perspective came around, once again, to gratitude.

A few weeks ago our Sunday morning worship leader challenged us with these words from a wall hanging he sees every day:

It's not the happy people who are thankful, it's the thankful people who are happy.

So, if I wanted to be a happy person, cutting, sorting, washing and steaming grapes, for hours (and hours and more hours) the secret was to be found in thankfulness.

She approached me with a shy grin and asked, "So how's The Snake doing?"

I didn't realize she was following the blog, (or even had the internet,) this young mom from a culture I've only begun to understand. "Well, I didn't really see The Snake yet, just the skin." "I see one every year," she told me. "The little ones are okay...well, I don't like them, but the big ones. (shiver.) I saw one when I was picking the beans." She motioned with her hand to show me how it slithered away.

"At least it was going away from you," I observed.

"At least Bennie was home," she countered. "We killed it."

​Which I took to mean he killed it because she clearly was moving in a direction opposite the snake!​.

everyone has a snake story

I never know what conversations I'll get involved in at church, but this one made me smile.

It seems everyone has a snake story.

Yes, we do,because

every one of us has a snake.

In a recent email from C.S. Lewis Daily, I thought Lewis' comments on temptation were totally relevant to the previous blog post about The Snake. Here are a few excerpts from The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 111, compiled in Yours, Jack. (You can check out the Bible Gateway site for yourself.)

In this excerpt from a letter dated 13 October 1961, Lewis commented:

Of course I have had and still have plenty of temptations. Frequent and regular prayer, and frequent and regular Communions, are a great help, whether they feel at the time as if they were doing you good or whether they don’t. I also found great help in monthly confession to a wise old clergyman.

I like these suggestions on snake bite prevention, even if the faith tradition I'm part of doesn't give a lot of opportunity for "frequent and regular" Communions...unless you consider twice a year frequent.

As for confesssion to a wise older clergyman...I have to tweak this one a bit since I'm married to a clergyman who might be considered wise and/or old in certain circles. (And right here he would be commenting that he is younger than I am...by 7 months.)

However, I have a friend who fills this spot nicely in my life, although if she reads this and realizes I'm referring to her, she is probably at this very moment snorting coffee through her nose, which is only one of the myriad things I love about her. She is not a clergyperson per say, but she is wise and she is old(er than me) and she listens better than anyone else I know, which is to say she doesn't judge me, but she doesn't let me off the hook either; so when I need someone to check up on me, she does it.

I am sometimes this person for her as well, although I am also not a clergyperson, and while some days I'm not sure how wise I am, I do fill the "old" category nicely, (just not older than her.)

Lewis continues:

Perhaps, however, the most important thing is to keep on: not to be discouraged however often one yields to the temptation, but always to pick yourself up again and ask forgiveness. In reviewing your sins don’t either exaggerate them or minimise them. Call them by their ordinary names and try to see them as you would see the same faults in somebody else—no special blackening or whitewashing.

call a savory a savory...

I find these simple instructions much harder than they initially appear.

I tend to fall off the line of truth to one side or the other regularly,

alternately condemning myself in the strongest terms or

explaining away the seriousness of my sin with a thin veneer of excuse or rationalization.​

How much better to just call a savory a savory... or perhaps in the case of sin, unsavory.

don't wait till the last moment before you put on the brakes...

I loved this final word picture which Lewis chose to explain how to avoid yielding to sin:

Of course there are other helps which are more commonsense. We must learn by experience to avoid ...trains of thought or social situations which for us (not necessarily for everyone) lead to temptations.

Like motoring--don’t wait till the last moment before you put on the brakes but put them on, gently and quietly, while the danger is still a good way off.

I read recently that the average freight train moving at 55 miles an hour can take a mile or more to stop after the engineer fully applies the brakes.

This is why I am being more mindful of what is going on in my head when I'm moving through my day. ​ If I don't want a train wreck in my life's journey, I need to reflect on my choices enroute.

I've come to realize that my brain can be moving a hundred miles an hour (in the wrong direction?!) while my body is practically immobile...say, weeding the garden or working in the kitchen, and I am the only one who can put on the brakes.

If I don't want a train wreck in my life's journey, I need to reflect on my choices enroute.

Prayer helps. And I don't mean just the "oh help" type prayer, although I do regularly use that strategy.

Praying for someone else has become a helpful tool for me in redirecting my thoughts. I keep a short mental list of people who are in particular need of prayer in any given day/week. (I think of them as my "stat" prayer list.)-a friend dealing with an adult child in active addiction;a young family relocating across the world on Kingdom business;a sweet young friend hitting the bumps of adolescence,my friend taking yet another broken child to trauma therapythe widow stirring a fresh batch of grief filled tear soup...

The list goes on, and I might pray aloud if no one else is in house. As the moments pass, I am putting on the brakes gently and quietly, while the danger is still a good way off.

Sometimes listening to (or humming!) songs that speak life and truth can direct my thoughts along healthy paths. I almost always have a hum in my head, and it's embarrassing to discover myself droning away on a phrase from a mindless commercial or (oh good grief) my phone ring tone. Worse, there are snippets of songs lodged in my brain from the days when I was less careful about what I downloaded into my mind, and they surface and loop around as though they contained truth for my life. I can't find the delete button, so I must choose to actively play over them.

I'm wondering how you deal with the dangers of The Snake in your garden.

How do you apply the brakes in your head when you're on a long downhill stretch?

Do you have a strategy you'd be willing to share with the rest of us?

I'd love to hear your tips for avoiding The Snake.

​Hmmm...​I hope my wise old clergyperson is available for lunch this week. If she is still speaking to me...

I've always said that seeing a snake in my garden would be a game changer for my gardening strategies. Well, that day may have arrived. Okay. Full disclosure, I didn't actually see a snake; but I did find a snake skin, which was close enough for me, since I knew a snake had been in it recently. Very recently

All things nature fascinate me, so I was quick to touch the shimmering line. I picked it up (yes I did.) and discovered it wasn't quite dry.

It was still tacky, spread out next to the picnic table, and it dawned on me that when I had been in this very spot a bit earlier in the day, this slender stripe was not a part of the landscaping.

And now it is/was.

​The skin was sticking to the grass, and before I realized what was happening, I was holding three thin sections of scaly fragileness.

So, now there's a snake in my garden. Or at least there might be. And while it isn't actually changing the way I garden, it has definitely changed the way I think when I'm gardening...which might end up being the important take away from this garden of life lesson.

“So, are you wearing gloves now?”you might ask.

Truth is, I've been wearing gardening gloves for years, because...spiders.Big ones.Furry looking legs.Anywhere.I don't want to reach into one under any circumstances...​or perennials.

But now, the thought of that snake keeps me mindful in a different way.

Last week when I was transforming a wildly disheveled raised bed into bare dirt (I have plans!), that little snake was..somewhere.​I knew he could show up anywhere and although I didn't see him, I also did not forget him.

As I pulled out gaillardia by the roots and scrabbled out yet another daisy, I was thinking, “He could be here.”

​It's just better not to be surprised by a snake.

I have uncovered a lot of life principles during my months and years of dirt therapy,

​but this was the first timea little lesson was curled up sunning itselfbeside an unseen a snakein a garden I can't quite see either.

​I'm talking about the garden that ismy heart,my mind,my soul.

Because, truth is, I have a snake in my garden.​It's always been there, but sometimes I live as if it isn't and that always gets me in trouble. Always.

I've been around other people who seem to think their Eden has no serpent...(or they want me to think that?) and they are posers every one, and much more likely to be taken off guard by a snake they won't admit is there.

Ask me how I know this. Sigh.​​Been there, lived it. Poorly.

Grace...elusive as a praying mantis

​Recently I was in a conversation where the topic of someone's egregious moral lapse was held in sharp light. There was no dodging the ugliness of the mess she'd made, but I heard more judgment in the voice of the other than I expected.

Grace seemed as elusive as the praying mantis I'm always hoping to see among the zinnias.

This woman with the strong words of condemnation...had she never faltered in her faithfulness for just a moment?

Didn't she mean it when she sang that old hymn,“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love?”

Was there no snake in her garden?

My thoughts kept searching for a line from the Book that I knew was there...somewhere –​and later I found it, packed with truth:

Therefore let the one who thinks he stands firm [immune to temptation, being overconfident and self-righteous], take care that he does not fall [into sin and condemnation]1 Corinthians 10:12 Amplified Bible

(Or worded this way in the ESV:)Therefore let anyone who thinks that he standstake heed lest he fall.

Or one more from the NRSV:So if you think you are standing,watch out that you do not fall.

Those words from the Word reminded me of this warning we saw in a State Park last year.

Life is like this more than I realized in my younger years:

Enjoy the trail,but be mindful of the snake.

Knowing the truth of the snake in my garden helps me to take care,to take heed,to watch out.

I have discovered that my own heart is deeply flawed and vulnerable to stumbling.And but for grace, the snake wins every time.

But for grace.​Ahhh.​Grace. ​“My grace is sufficient for you,for My power is made perfect in weakness.”2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV​

So, yes, be mindful when you're gardening through your days. There's a snake there somewhere.

But there is also grace,extravagant grace,offering the strength to stand, a place to fall.

Author

I'm finding my way beyond the maze of the "middle" years (if I'm gonna be 100 and something someday...) ​living life as a country woman who is a writer, gardener, wife, mom, nature observer, teacher,and most of all a much loved child of God.